Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of
computers that emerged in the mid-1980s, characterized by the combination of
vector processing and small-scale
multiprocessing. As
scientific computing using vector processors became more popular, the need for lower-cost systems that might be used at the departmental level instead of the corporate level created an opportunity for new computer vendors to enter the market. As a generalization, the price targets for these smaller computers were one-tenth of the larger
supercomputers.